Meet 25 Yr Old Kenyan Author Who Scooped Sh1.5M & a Coveted Award

We all read books from celebrated authors such as John Grisham, Paul Coelho, J.K Rowling, Sidney Sheldon, Chinua Achebe just to mention but a few. But not a lot of  people do bother to read books from Kenyan authors.

Okwiri Oduor, a 25-year-old Kenyan author won this year’s Caine Prize for African Writing highlighting literary talent from the continent.

Ms. Oduor who studied law but switched to writing scooped the Sh1.5 million for her short story “My Father’s Head” from Feast, Famine and Potluck (Short Story Day Africa, South Africa, 2013).

The short story ‘My Father’s Head’ explores the narrator’s difficulty in dealing with the loss of her father and looks at the themes of memory, loss and loneliness. The narrator works in an old people’s home and comes into contact with a priest, giving her the courage to recall her buried memories of her father.

Quoted by The Standard, Scottish author and chief judge Jackie Kay says,  “Okwiri Oduor is a writer we are all really excited to have discovered,” adding that her story is one you want to return the minute you are done resding it.

Ms Oduor, who is now working on her first novel, had been shortlisted with South Africa’s Diane Awerbuck for her short story Phosphorescence, Efemia Chela from both Ghana and Zambia for Chicken, Zimbabwe’s Tendai Huchu for The Intervention, and Kenya’s Billy Kahora for The Gorilla’s Apprentice. Each will take home £500 prize money.

She is currently working on her debut novel, after writing a novella, “The Dream Chasers,” that was highly commended in the Commonwealth Book Prize in 2012. She also directed the inaugural Writivism Literary Festival in Kampala, Uganda, last year.

The Caine Prize has brought international attention to its winners, including NoViolet Bulawayo (Zimbabwe), Leila Aboulela (Sudan), Binyavanga Wainaina (Kenya), Yvonne Owuor (Kenya) and Tope Folarin (Nigeria), who top high-profile African writers.

Previous winners include Nigeria’s Tope Folarin in 2013 and Zimbabwe’s NoViolet Bulawayo in 2011.

The five short-listed prize stories, as well as stories written at Caine Prize workshops, are published annually in the United Kingdom and Africa.

The winner will be able to take up a month’s residence as a writer-in-residence at the Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice at Georgetown University in Washington DC, and will be invited to appear at the Open Book Festival in Cape Town in September, the Storymoja Hay Festival in Nairobi and the Ake Festival in Nigeria.

With the success of one Okwiri Oduor, do you think writing as a career has a promising future in Kenya?

Courtesy: The Standard

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